I've heard about this a lot recently, mainly involving Apple and Intel. Some says it's a protocol, others say it's fibre optic, and others say it's copper. One source even said it was a "wireless wire".

Apparently it can carry data, but not video streams, surely the cable can't know the difference between 1s and 0s representing data, and 1s and 0s representing video streams.

Or it will replace all the wires we currently have except power, another place said it is for inside laptops.

Those are just examples so I haven't given any sources, I just want to know what on Earth Thunderbolt (formerly known as Light Peak) is?

3 Answers
3

Light Peak is a proprietary optical
cable interface designed by Intel to
connect devices in a peripheral bus.
The technology has a high bandwidth at
10 Gbit/s, with the potential to
scale to 100 Gbit/s by 2020.

Light Peak is being developed as a
single universal replacement for
current buses such as SCSI, SATA, USB,
FireWire, and PCI Express in an
attempt to reduce the proliferation of
ports on contemporary computers. Bus
systems such as USB were developed for
the same purpose, and successfully
replaced a number of older
technologies. However, increasing
bandwidth demands have led to higher
performance standards like eSATA and
DisplayPort that cannot connect to USB
and similar peripherals. Light Peak
provides a high enough bandwidth to
drive these over a single type of
interface, and often on a single daisy
chained cable.

So in the future, you will be able to plug external graphics cards into the same port that you could plug a Hard Drive or display? Also on CNET it says the first version will be copper, yet still ahve the same bandwidth as if it had fibre optic.
–
Jonathan.Feb 22 '11 at 22:38

@Jonathan - That's sort of their hope, apparently. Keep in mind all that has been demo'd is VERY early prototypes.
–
ShinraiFeb 22 '11 at 22:48

And to add to that, there were originally speculations saying it would be fiber optic, then there was a rumor about it being copper because it would be cheaper, but now there were corrections and intel said it would be fiber optic.
–
a sandwhichFeb 22 '11 at 22:49

Well apparently according a more reliable cnet post. There will be an announcement on Thursday possibly coinciding with the likely MacBook pro announcement from apple.
–
Jonathan.Feb 23 '11 at 0:12

In its initial out-of-the-lab incarnation, Thunderbolt can use either copper or fiber connections for 10Gbps bidirectional communication. That speed is 20 times faster than the theoretical limit of USB 2.0, 12 times faster than FireWire 800, and twice as fast as USB3. According to Intel, however, the 10Gbps isn't just a theoretical peak speed, but usable bandwidth. This allows a single port to communicate with multiple devices simultaneously for a combined throughput of 10Gbps.

That 10Gbps is much faster than most current I/O technologies. With two devices pushing data at the maximum rate, you could back up a full Blu-ray movie in 30 seconds, or sync 64GB of music to a portable device in about a minute. Copying the entire contents of the Library of Congress in digital form—approximately 20TB of data—would take about 35 minutes.

Active electrical-only cables can be up to 3 meters (just under 10 feet) in length, similar to current FireWire and USB standards. Active optical cables, which use fiber for data transmission and copper for up to 10W of power, can be "tens of meters" in length. Passive fiber-only cables could potentially be hundreds of meters long. These lengths enable more flexible positioning between devices and computers instead of relying on specialized connections or relatively pokey wireless solutions.

At 10 Gbps, Thunderbolt™ technology
gives you great responsiveness with
high-speed data and display transfers
in each direction—at the same time.
With a single cable, connecting a PC
to multiple devices is simple, making
it easy to get and see what you want,
when you want it. Thunderbolt
technology gives you incredible
flexibility; high performance
expansion is just a cable away for new
and novel uses, now and in the future.

Developed by Intel (under the code
name Light Peak), and brought to
market with technical collaboration
from Apple. Thunderbolt technology is
a new, high-speed, dual-protocol I/O
technology designed for performance,
simplicity, and flexibility. This
high-speed data transfer technology
features the following:

Intel's Thunderbolt controllers
interconnect a PC and other devices,
transmitting and receiving packetized
traffic for both PCIe and DisplayPort
protocols. Thunderbolt technology
works on data streams in both
directions, at the same time, so users
get the benefit of full bandwidth in
both directions, over a single cable.
With the two independent channels, a
full 10 Gbps of bandwidth can be
provided for the first device, as well
as additional downstream devices.

And all Thunderbolt devices share a
common connector, allowing users to
daisy chain devices one after another
with interoperable cables.

What Thunderbolt means to users

Thunderbolt technology enables using
the thinnest and lightest laptops and
connecting to the extra power and
performance of other devices when
needed, using a single cable. Adding
new performance devices is simple and
easy—just plug and play—making
Thunderbolt technology powerful and
flexible.

Thunderbolt technology was
specifically designed with
professional audio and video
applications in mind, where the
inherently low latency and highly
accurate time synchronization features
play a crucial role.

With Thunderbolt enabled products,
video editing and sharing using Intel®
Quick Sync Video technology is even
faster and easier.

Data transfers for backup, sharing,
and editing are tremendously
accelerated using Thunderbolt
products, significantly reducing times
to complete these tasks.

And Thunderbolt enabled products are
compatible with existing DisplayPort
devices so you don’t have to go buy a
new display to take advantage of a
Thunderbolt technology enabled
computer.